


The Night We Met

by 70sBabe



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: F/M, Jess' POV, Literati, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-17 00:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13647492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/70sBabe/pseuds/70sBabe
Summary: I had all and then most of youSome and now none of youTake me back to the night we met-The Night We Met, Lord Huron





	The Night We Met

Jess was pissed. Hell, pissed was a major understatement, but the English language didn’t yet have a word for the anger that he felt. Life had never been kind to Jess Mariano, but this? This was a whole new low.

He hadn’t really believed Liz when she had told him he was being shipped off. She had threatened it a million times before, but she didn’t have the balls to actually go through with it. She was too dependent on Jess’ presence, silent and brooding as it was. But apparently, he didn’t actually need to do anything to get sent away. He had heard Liz on the phone with his uncle, Luke, spouting off lies about how Jess was running with a bad crowd, how she thought he might be stealing money from her, how he was getting in fights after school. It was all a big fat lie. Jess didn’t run with a bad crowd; he didn’t run with  _ any _ crowd. He couldn’t steal any money from Liz, seeing as how she didn’t really have much to steal anyways. As for the fighting? Well, there might have been a little grain of truth in that.

The real reason Jess was getting the old heave ho? Ken. Ken was Liz’s latest boyfriend and boy, was he a winner! He was going on his sixth month of unemployment, but before that, he had been “a member of the sales team” at the Staples on Broadway. He spent his days hanging around the apartment, watching Family Feud and eating Cool Ranch Doritos. Jess hated him and Ken knew it, which is why he had spent so much time convincing Liz to get rid of him.

Jess almost didn’t blame Liz. She wasn’t really an adult, you know? He’d known it ever since he was 5, when she forgot to pick him up from his first day of kindergarten. While the school tried to get ahold of her, they plunked Jess in the school library. He had disinterestedly wandered the shelves until something caught his interest. He had pulled the slim paperback ( _ Dinosaurs After Dark _ ) off the shelf and sat down, his back leaning against the wall. By the time Liz had showed up, he was 5 books into the Magic Tree House series and hooked on reading forever.

So, yeah, Liz wasn’t a real adult. She got overwhelmed easily, cried at the drop of the hat and, once she got an idea in her head, she had to put it into action, no matter the consequences. Ken had taken advantage of Liz’s trusting nature and her impressionable brain, which is how Jess had landed himself a one-way ticket to Stars Hollow, Connecticut. God, what a name, huh? I mean, _Stars Hollow_? It was right up there with Pleasantville. 

If he had thought the name was bad, though, he found the town itself a hundred times worse. Luke, his uncle, had come to pick him up from the bus stop, practically sweating through his flannel shirt with anxiety. He kept up a running conversation on the way to the diner. Jess could sense his discomfort, but he didn’t feel like throwing Luke a bone: he stayed silent. They walked through the diner and up to the apartment that Jess was now expected to call home.

If he wasn’t totally and completely committed to hating everything about this situation, he might have admitted that the apartment was kind of cool. Lots of baseball memorabilia, a couple of stacks of books; it was nice. Small, though. He and Luke were gonna be living right on top of each other, which meant zero privacy.

He had quickly left the apartment, trying to catch a break from Luke’s incessant questioning. He had a copy of  _ Our Town _ rolled up and shoved in his back pocket (call it academic research for the small-town life he was about to live) and was ready to find a quiet place to catch his breath and clear his head.

As he shuffled around the town square, he found himself absolutely amazed at this godforsaken town. People stopping each other on the street to talk, kids playing hopscotch across the street; I mean, there was a gazebo, for God’s sake! Jess instinctively headed towards the trees, hoping things would be a little less Andy Griffith there. He followed a wide dirt path, kicking at rocks, trying to express his disgruntledness in any form he could. Then, he stopped.

He was standing in front of a small pond, the water as still as glass. There was a wooden bridge across it.  _ Looks like we’ve got ourselves a winner, folks _ , Jess thought ruefully as he made his way to the middle of the bridge and sat down, pulling his book out and dangling his feet over the water. He had always liked water; ponds, rivers, the ocean, you name it, Jess was there. Liz had always joked about him being Aquaman.

“Talk to any of the fish while you were down there, baby?” she would call when Jess’ head would pop up out of the water, hair plastered to his head. He would laugh and shake his head. This was all before he figured out his mom wasn’t like the other moms and life wasn’t the magical place he had thought it would be. That whole “childlike wonder” thing had only lasted about 4 years for Jess.

He spent a few hours sitting on the bridge, only getting up to head back when he finished  _ Our Town _ . Of course, once he entered the diner, there was some lady at the counter who wouldn’t stop talking, but was apparently a friend of Luke’s. He didn’t say much and he didn’t stick around very long but, just his luck, Luke later informed him that they were having dinner at this woman’s house (her name was kinda weird? L-something. Laurel? He couldn’t remember) and that she had a daughter that was his age ( _ oh, great, looks like I’m now the town’s most eligible bachelor _ ) and that he better behave himself while they were there, alright? Totally insane.

They walked over to the house the next night, Luke muttering under his breath about being late. God, he was a real nut job, huh? They walked up to a nice-looking house, lights in all the windows and the sounds of loud, exuberant chatter muffled through the walls. Luke knocked on the door, the lady (Lorelai! That was her name!) swung it open, chattering about food and something called “Sookie.” Jess could already feel a headache coming on. He shoved his way past Lorelai, wandering into the living room. He could hear Lorelai and Luke talking about him, but he tuned them out, focusing instead on the pictures over the mantle. He had always liked looking at other people’s family photos. He chalked it up to his own broken home and, according to Freud, his latent desire for a real family.

Most of these were generic family photos, except for the fact that there were only two people in all of them: Lorelai and her daughter.  _ So Daddy Dearest isn’t in the picture _ , Jess mused.  _ Well, that makes two of us _ . Lorelai approached him again, inviting him into the kitchen, where he was met with two mental-asylum escapees who were shouting about lemons. Lorelai cracked some weak joke, then called “Rory, they’re here,” through an open door Jess hadn’t noticed before.

“Coming,” a soft voice called back. Jess turned towards the room, moving to stand in the doorway. A girl (Rory, he presumed) was sitting at a computer, textbooks piled around her. She turned her head as he came in and smiled. “Hey.”

Jess felt his breath hitch. Rory was pretty, yeah, but her  _ eyes _ . They were bluer than blue, the exact color of the sky on a cloudless day, the color of the oceans and rivers he was constantly seeking out. He felt….at peace. He felt the same way he had this morning when he had found the pond and the bridge. But he managed to keep his cool, saying “Hey,” while scanning the rest of her room, trying to get a feel for her personality. Sure, she was a looker, but if she was an Aaron Carter fan, Jess was kicking this crush to the curb.

“I’m Rory,” she was still smiling at him.

“Yeah, I figured,” Jess shrugged. His eyes suddenly lit on something that made his heart start racing.  _ It can’t be. This has gotta be a cosmic joke, right? _ This girl had a bookshelf full of books,  _ real _ books. Jess turned away from her to study the spines.  _ Vanity Fair, Fahrenheit 451, Anna Karenina, High Fidelity _ ; it was like she’d copied his library card history. But, again, he tried to play it cool. “Wow,” he shoved his hands in his pockets. “Aren’t we hooked on phonics?”

“Oh, I read a lot,” she sounded almost embarrassed as she got up from the desk and came over to stand next to him. “Do you read?”

Jess was still studying the bookshelf, running a finger over the spines, until he found  _ Howl _ , one of his all-time favorites. He pulled it off the shelf, turning to face her and shrug. “Not much.”

Okay, so he was lying. What’s it to you? Sure, he read like other people breathed, but  _ she _ didn’t need to know that. What if she turned out to be totally uncool? She’d be, like, trying to shanghai him for the town book club or something! Jess preferred to play it close to the vest.

“I could loan you that if you wanted,” she pointed to the copy of  _ Howl _ in his hands. “It’s great!”

“No, thanks,” he set it down, taking a step closer to her and to the windows he had been eyeing as an escape route since he had arrived here.

“Well, if you change your mind,” she said earnestly.

“Okay, we really need to get Jackson away from the lemons,” Lorelai suddenly poked her head into the room. “So, we’re moving the feast into the living room.”

“Okay, we’ll be right there!”

Jess, remembering that they were in a house full of grown-ups that he didn’t want to be around, had started to fiddle with the curtains. “So, do these open?”

“Oh yeah, you just have to unlatch them and push.” God, these small-town dopes were accommodating. Jess could have asked for a spare key and where they kept the valuables and Rory would have told him with a smile on her face and a “sure thing, neighbor!”

“Great,” Jess unlatched the windows. “Shall we?”

“Shall we what?”

“Bail.” Jess had figured that was obvious.

“Uh, no?”

“Why?” Jess would have been surprised if she had agreed (Rory didn’t seem the rebellious type).

“Because it’s Tuesday night in Stars Hollow,” she looked like she was about to start laughing. “There’s nowhere to bail  _ to _ . The 24-hour mini-mart just closed 20 minutes ago.”

“So we’ll walk around or sit on a bench somewhere and stare at our shoes.” Jess couldn’t explain it, but he just wanted to get out and go somewhere with her. He wanted to be alone with her, to talk about books and music and how lame this town was. He wanted to go sit on his bridge with her. Yeah, he was already calling it “his” bridge. Whatever.

She was laughing now, a big, incredulous smile on her face. “Sookie just made a ton of really good food and I’m starving and, though it may not seem like it right at this moment, it’s gonna be fun. Trust me.”

“I don’t even know you.”

“Well, don’t I look trustworthy?” God, those eyes were straight out of a Disney princess movie. This was insane, this feeling that Jess had. He was torn between staying in this stupid house and eating dinner, which would make a good impression on Rory, and jumping out the window to go smoke a cigarette and start  _ The Count Of Monte Cristo _ .

“Maybe.”

“Okay, good, let’s eat!” She was already walking out of the room, like she knew that Jess was gonna follow after her. She was probably used to guys falling at her feet and doing whatever she wanted when she batted her eyelashes. As much as Jess hated to be a statistic, he found himself following after her.  _ What are you doing? You have got to get out of here. Or at least make some trouble, stir things up a bit. This isn’t you! _

“You want a soda?” she called over her shoulder.

“Oh, I’ll get it,” he shoved his hands in his pockets again, leaning on the door frame. Everything from this night was knocking him off balance. Rory had her back turned to him and Jess didn’t know what came over him, but he grabbed the copy of  _ Howl _ that they had been talking about, the one he had set down on her dresser, and shoved it in his pocket. He had a vague idea about what he would do with it, a way to really get her attention.

“Okay,” she smiled again and headed into the living room, where Jess could hear the crazy lemon-lady talking about tomatoes or something. He opened the fridge and was about to reach for a soda when he saw beer bottles. And he knew how he was gonna make trouble tonight. He almost hated to do it, but he didn’t like the way he was feeling right now. His brain was supplying him with some insane fantasy where he sat down and had dinner with those people, dazzled Rory with his wit and intellect, and then hung out with her in her room, talking about books and movies and everything while the grown-ups did the dishes or whatever. But Jess shook those thoughts away. This wasn’t  _ Boy Meets World _ ; Jess Mariano was not about to acclimate and assimilate into small-town life just because he found a pretty girl.

So, he grabbed a beer. He went out on the porch to drink it, but was quickly interrupted by Lorelai. They had a fight. Jess wasn’t used to arguing with grown-ups like this; sure, he had fought with adults before, but Lorelai was matching him quip for sarcastic quip. They talked the same way, shooting insults like arrows at each other. But Jess went a step too far, like always, and Lorelai shut down, telling him, “I’m going inside, stay out of my fridge.” Jess figured that was as close to “Get the hell off my property!” as she was gonna get, so he left. Figured that was the neighborly thing to do, right?

As he walked down the road, wondering how mad Luke was gonna be when he caught up with him, his thoughts unsurprisingly turned to Rory.

She was like a lot of other girls he had met before; nice, polite, diligent homework-doer. I mean, hell, the barrette alone should have been a tip-off that this girl was the definition of a teacher’s pet. But she had been different, too. The books, the posters of different places around the world, the easy smile that slid on her face when she talked to him. Jess couldn’t put his finger on what it was. Maybe it was the fact that he knew he’d never have a chance with her; his little dialogue with Lorelai had made damn sure of that. Maybe it was the way she had laughed when she told him there was nowhere to bail to in this freakshow town. Whatever it was, Jess didn’t like it. He didn’t want to be here and he sure as hell didn’t want anything that could cause him to start thinking “Hey, maybe this place isn’t so bad after all.”

He swung open the door to the diner and headed upstairs, hoping that Luke hadn’t somehow beaten him back. He wasn’t ready for the “discussion” he knew was coming. Luke was almost afraid to yell at him, so every conversation they had that was about ground rules or consequences had Luke walking on eggshells. Jess usually found it amusing, but tonight he just wanted to go to sleep and forget any of this ever happened.

Things went on normally (as normal as this town could be) until Luke showed up after school one day, talking about someone named Taylor who was accusing Jess of stealing money from some dish in a grocery store. Now, Jess was a little klepto at times, but he didn’t steal money. He didn’t know why, but that was where his subconscious had him draw the line. He didn’t steal any money and he told Luke that. Luke acted like he believed him, but Jess knew he didn’t. So, Jess started yelling about how he didn’t want to be there and how he wanted Luke to just leave him alone, and God, it felt good. Luke was getting mad, but he still refused to yell at Jess, so they just stalked off together over Jess’ bridge.

Jess liked to think that he could usually see things coming. Not a lot surprised him. But Luke shoving him into the pond? That was a real shocker. Jess was so surprised by it that he didn’t even yell at Luke. He just watched Luke storm off, then slogged out of the water and headed back to the diner.

He had thought that was the end of it, that Luke had let off some steam and now they were gonna go back to normal, but nope. Luke came home late that night with all kinds of anti-smoking memorabilia, tossing it in Jess’ lap as he babbled about homework and working in the diner and pre-approved activities and something about a gnome (which, if Jess was being honest, he had forgotten that he had stolen in the first place).

It was all just a little too much for Jess, so he left, hoping the cool night air would calm him down enough to stop him from knocking Luke unconscious and hopping on the next bus to New York. As he walked down the street, he saw Rory leaving a store. He couldn’t help himself. He quickened his pace to walk next to her and caught her attention: “Hey.”  _ You know, for all those books I read, you’d think I’d be better at the whole “conversation” thing _ .

“Hey yourself.”

“What are you doing out here?”

“I needed something for school. What about you?”

“Oh, uh, same thing.” Jess didn’t know why, but he wanted to please Rory. It was a very dangerous feeling to have.

“So,” she said hesitantly. “That was quite a disappearing act you pulled the other night.”

“Potlucks and TupperWare parties aren’t really my thing,” he shrugged, pulling a quarter out of his pocket and fiddling with it.

“Too cool for school, huh?”

“Yes, that is me.” Jess matched her sardonic tone.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh, this?” Jess started one of his old magic tricks. He had learned a lot of coin and card tricks out of a library book the summer he was 10, before he learned that not everyone thought magicians were as cool as he did. “Nothing,” he scoffed, making the quarter disappear. “Just another little disappearing act.”

“Little tip?” Rory squinted her eyes. She did not appear to be impressed by the trick.

“Yeah?”

“If you ever wanna speak to me again, don’t pull that out of my ear.”

“So I assume the nose is off limits, too.” Jess  _ liked _ this. He liked the way Rory could match his snark with some sarcasm of her own. She had a quick mind and Jess had always admired that in a person.

“Any place you wouldn’t naturally find a coin, let’s put it that way.”

They were silent for a second, both stopped in the middle of the street just looking at each other, before Rory started to walk again, Jess following.

“So what are you doing now?”

“I’ve got some homework to finish.”

“Okay,” Jess smiled. “Then I’ll leave you this last little trick.” He whipped  _ Howl _ out of his pocket. It was pathetic, but he had been carrying it around all week, waiting to run into her again.

“You bought a copy?” She was smiling and Jess could just tell books were her favorite thing to discuss. “I told you I’d lend you mine.”

“It is yours.”

“You stole my book.” Rory had stopped walking again.

“Nope, borrowed it.”

“Okay, that’s not called a trick, that’s called a felony.”

“I just wanted to put some notes in the margins for you.” Jess knew it was weird that he did that. The technical term was annotating. He had started with just underlining things he liked, but it quickly grew into him jotting his thought on the themes of  _ 1984 _ in the blank spaces of the pages. It was like he was giving himself English homework. So lame, but he couldn’t stop.

“What?” she wrinkled her nose and opened the book, scanning the scribbled letters. “You’ve read this before.” A statement, not a question.

“About 40 times.” Jess figured it was time to be honest now; he’d already exposed his secret nerdy side.

“I thought you said you didn’t read much.”

“Well, what is much?” he shrugged. “Night, Rory.” And he turned to go back to the diner.  _ Always leave ‘em wanting more _ .

“Night, Dodger,” she called back. Jess stopped.

“Dodger.” he mused. It seemed familiar, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

“Figure it out,” Rory grinned, seeming pleased that she had managed to one up him. She had turned and started to walk back to her house when Jess was hit with a flash of inspiration.

“Oliver Twist!” Jess had read  _ Oliver Twist _ under his desk in the third grade, tuning out the teacher trying to tell him about the water cycle and falling into the story of the unfortunate orphan. Not his favorite Dickens, but his first one.

Rory turned and nodded, a smirk on her face. Then, she turned around, headed for home.

Jess stood there for a minute, watching her go.  _ Oh, I’m in deep now _ .


End file.
